I Thought that gearing for CTC then stam was better than dodge/parry? (this is the line of thinking i have stuck with this entire xpac, and ive killed every boss on heroic, so i have to be doing something right.)

I have about 230k hp raid buffed with full CTC because I have 200 or more mastery on every peice and am able to gem almost all 60stam. (minus the peices of course where there is no other option)

so you trade like 200str for 200int, big deal, its the same stam and you get 170 mastery for it.

I guess im alone in my boat, but i will prolly be buying the int cloak

Rokh wrote:I Thought that gearing for CTC then stam was better than dodge/parry? (this is the line of thinking i have stuck with this entire xpac, and ive killed every boss on heroic, so i have to be doing something right.)

I have about 230k hp raid buffed with full CTC because I have 200 or more mastery on every peice and am able to gem almost all 60stam. (minus the peices of course where there is no other option)

so you trade like 200str for 200int, big deal, its the same stam and you get 170 mastery for it.

I guess im alone in my boat, but i will prolly be buying the int cloak

Ryolith cloak was an exception as it has so much ilvl over the 378 alternative and those two juicy sockets that was no challenge, was better hands down, while in this case the VP tanking one wins over Ryolith has it offers a socket itself (a good one!) and is higher ilvl.

With the casting cloak there's really no comparison, why would you? for Mastery? As stated you already cap mastery, you have need for no more, so it's time to move to avoidance and here the tanking cape wins.

I think I'll be getting the new pvp cloak to tide me over untill I've saved up for the vp one.Just a thought but might the agi cloak from heroic rhoy be bis for us as we start to value stamina more and more?With it's 2 sockets I believe it would net us an extra 53 stam over the vp one.

Daishan"I'll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there's evidence of any thinking going on inside it." -- Terry Pratchett

degre wrote:With the casting cloak there's really no comparison, why would you? for Mastery? As stated you already cap mastery, you have need for no more, so it's time to move to DPS and here the tanking cape wins.

Fixed that for you.I really dont see much benefit in choosing avoidance stats over hit/exp tbh.As long as im block capped, id much rather go for hit/exp cap than gaining 5% avoidance.Trying to buff the RNG doesnt seem as usefull as guaranteeing you do a lot more dmg.But thats just my take on it.

Oh, I completely agree with you, I just meant that before stacking more useless mastery I'll simply take the avoidance, but my plans for 4.3 are to go with stamina oriented gems and to improve my overall dps by working on expertise and hit, which paired with a Souldrinker would actually mean that aside improving our DPS we would also be boosting our self healing.

No one said anything about going over the cap, dont put words in my mouth.. with adding more mastery on an item, you can add other stuff like double stam trinkets or weapons like souldrinker with no stats.

CTC means 102, not more not less, and getting the cloak will let me replace my beth trinket with a stam trinket, approching 240k raid buffed with full ctc... edited

Rokh wrote:No one said anything about going over the cap, dont put words in my mouth.. with adding more mastery on an item, you can add other stuff like double stam trinkets or weapons like souldrinker with no stats.

CTC means 102, not more not less, and getting the cloak will let me replace my beth trinket with a stam trinket, approching 240k raid buffed with full ctc... edited - Digren

So, I'm a tard then? Because I don't find it appealing for a variety of reasons.

You should be easily CTC-capping in DS. We won't need to be seeking mastery out, but instead should be looking at what beneficial secondary stats we can get after capping mastery. That might mean stamina, avoidance, or hit/exp depending on your goals, but it generally won't mean intellect gear.

You'll be able to go dual stam trinkets quite easily with the gear we'll have available, and without having to resort to using intellect pieces. That's ignoring the fact that there's almost no good reason to go with dual stamina trinkets this tier, because one of the stamina trinkets has a 100% useless proc (mastery). You don't get a better mastery->stam conversion ratio via trinkets than you do with gems, so it's generally going to be more effective to shift mastery gems over to stamina.

In addition, the cloak you mentioned isn't a huge difference in CTC. Here's a comparison of the two. Once you consider the STR->Parry conversion, you're trading 260 parry and 77 expertise for 123 mastery and 100 hit. In terms of CTC, you're gaining around 1.4% coverage. That's not game-breaking, and it's certainly not enough to account for an entire mastery->stam trinket trade. It's 109 mastery, or two and a half gems worth, assuming we're even still using mastery gems at that point.

The tanking cloak is also going to be ahead in total damage mitigation, almost by a factor of 2. Also note that the 77 expertise rating and Strength is going to be much better for threat than the Intellect and 100 hit rating is, if that matters to you.

I just don't see the intellect cape as a very compelling option. Yes, it's ahead on CTC by a small margin. But it's not fair to say that margin is completely convertible to an equivalent amount of stamina. That depends on the rest of your gear, and it's entirely possible to be in a situation where you're already gemmed/enchanted for stamina so heavily that you can't take advantage of that extra 1.4%.

Rohk I see your line of reasoning, and I think everyone else probably does too. But it just doesn't seem sensible in the long run.

You see, right now you might be gaining quite an advantage by boosting your mastery with the INT cloak, but here's the thing: As you start getting loaded up with 397 gear and heroic gear, you're going to have so much mastery that you're going to need to start dumping it off just to avoid going way past CTC cap.

That is, you're going to eventually need to dump mastery and either start loading up on more dodge/parry with its diminishing returns, or take Treckie's advice and start getting some more Exp/Hit to do more DPS.

And it is at that point that you're going to look at your cloak and say "well, I guess I'll start dumping mastery by replacing this cloak."

Go with the 397 VP Tanking cloak, it's a better decision in the long run, even if it means you need to keep using the Beth trinket for a little while longer (Hell, Beth trinket is awesome anyway! )

Treck wrote:I really dont see much benefit in choosing avoidance stats over hit/exp tbh.As long as im block capped, id much rather go for hit/exp cap than gaining 5% avoidance.Trying to buff the RNG doesnt seem as usefull as guaranteeing you do a lot more dmg.But thats just my take on it.

theckhd wrote:So, I'm a tard then? Because I don't find it appealing for a variety of reasons.

You should be easily CTC-capping in DS. We won't need to be seeking mastery out, but instead should be looking at what beneficial secondary stats we can get after capping mastery. That might mean stamina, avoidance, or hit/exp depending on your goals, but it generally won't mean intellect gear.

It has the same stam as every other cloak of that ilevel. with the most midigation.

theckhd wrote: That's ignoring the fact that there's almost no good reason to go with dual stamina trinkets this tier, because one of the stamina trinkets has a 100% useless proc (mastery).

Did i have to say they were from this tier? whats wrong with scales of life..nothing.

theckhd wrote:In terms of CTC, you're gaining around 1.4% coverage. That's not game-breaking, and it's certainly not enough to account for an entire mastery->stam trinket trade. It's 109 mastery, or two and a half gems worth, assuming we're even still using mastery gems at that point. .

Im selling a cloak thats 1.4% shittyier than the one your wearing. want to buy it ? didnt think so.

Having 1.4% less CTC does not automatically make it shittier. Having a pile of useless or suboptimal stats on a cloak, however, does.

I think you need to stop worshiping at the altar of mastery, and think holistically about your gear. At a certain point the mastery on that cloak is not going to be useful, and the intellect on it is already useless.

In FL the Agi cloak still made sense because of that tier's itemization. In this tier, wasting stats on the cloak isn't necessary, so I don't know why you'd go out of your way to waste itemization points.

Also, just because someone disagrees with you and can make a ration argument as to why they disagree is no reason to descend into insults. You have yet to come up with an argument other than "1.4% CTC from Mastery is better," as far as I can tell. If you can substantiate your line of reasoning, you may change some minds.

theckhd wrote:So, I'm a tard then? Because I don't find it appealing for a variety of reasons.

You should be easily CTC-capping in DS. We won't need to be seeking mastery out, but instead should be looking at what beneficial secondary stats we can get after capping mastery. That might mean stamina, avoidance, or hit/exp depending on your goals, but it generally won't mean intellect gear.

It has the same stam as every other cloak of that ilevel. with the most midigation.

You missed the point. You can convert excess mastery to Stamina by switching a mastery gem to a stamina gem (or a trinket, for that matter). Thus, you can't just consider the two items independently, you have to think about the rest of your gear and how those items interact with it. Since we'll be mastery-capping, you're choosing to use an Int/mast/hit item just to reforge that mastery off of your gear somewhere else, likely to dodge/parry. Instead, you could use the Str/parry/(exp->mast) cloak and keep that mastery on another item. By doing that, you gain some parry and expertise instead of a less useful secondary (hit) and less useful primary (Int).

Rokh wrote:

theckhd wrote: That's ignoring the fact that there's almost no good reason to go with dual stamina trinkets this tier, because one of the stamina trinkets has a 100% useless proc (mastery).

Did i have to say they were from this tier? whats wrong with scales of life..nothing.

So, you're choosing to use a sub-optimal cloak for excess mastery in order to shift more mastery on other items to stam... only to use a lower-ilvl stam trinket with less stam?

Hopefully you see the flaw in that logic, right? You could be converting mastery to stamina via gems and use current-tier trinkets, and end up with more mastery and more stamina overall.

Rokh wrote:

theckhd wrote:In terms of CTC, you're gaining around 1.4% coverage. That's not game-breaking, and it's certainly not enough to account for an entire mastery->stam trinket trade. It's 109 mastery, or two and a half gems worth, assuming we're even still using mastery gems at that point. .

Im selling a cloak thats 1.4% shittyier than the one your wearing. want to buy it ? didnt think so.

... you people are crazy.

It's not 1.4% "shittier," because you pay for that extra CTC in other areas (you'll take more damage overall and produce less threat). You're pretending that it's a hands-down superior cloak, but it simply isn't. Giving me more CTC when I'm already at cap doesn't help me. A bucket of water isn't worth a dime if you're standing in the middle of a goddamn lake.

But whatever. I must be crazy, what the fuck would I know about tanking.

theckhd wrote: Hopefully you see the flaw in that logic, right? You could be converting mastery to stamina via gems and use current-tier trinkets, and end up with more mastery and more stamina overall.

Im gonna stop replyin to this cause your ability to read is pretty much zero.

Ive said I dont use mastery gems, I already have 99% 60stam gems and I only use off color gems when the net result is 60stam.

theckhd wrote:But whatever. I must be crazy, what the fuck would I know about tanking.

There are many approches to survival.

Im going to assume you generate more threat than me, you also dodge more than me, you also parry more than me.

We both have 102% ctc, and I have in the range of 30k more health than you. You can take from that what you want, but what I take from that is my job is to live, and i do it better than you.

If you want more DPS, go for the str Valor cloakIf you want more avoidance go for the str Valor cloakIf you want more sta go for agi Rhyolith cloakIf you want full CTC and have to use the int cloak which amounts to 44 Mastery worth of CTC - something is wrong.

I don't think that we will ever be wanting to "dump" mastery considering we are forced to drop mastery in several places. But as Theck points out, it's quite easy to get into a situation where with your current pieces, you can't regem enough to take advantage of additional mastery as stamina.

I see a lot of posts about how easily we CTC cap in 4.3. That's missing the point entirely. Since early Firelands mastery has meant stamina, and the only question is how to fit the pieces together. If you'd rather fit in, say, the Mirror trinket, your BiS shoulders are likely going to change...

Personally, I can't see going for a caster cloak this tier. I just doubt that piece will fit.